A Blog About Making Culture
A Modest Declaration
January 23, 2003
So I got a copy of another extremist "manifesto" today, this one by a bunch of anti-American idiotarians who just don't seem to understand the basic principles that our great country was founded upon. What this piece of Berkeley leftist idiocy needs is a good fisking!
We hold these truths to be self-evidentThey're already off to a bad start. Leaving aside the fact that this bunch of clowns doesn't even identify who the "we" is, their entire premise is based on the idea that their opinions are "truths" that are "self-evident". "Because I say so" isn't sufficient evidence for anything. Typical liberal tactics.
that all men are created equal,More multiculturalist bullshit. The fact of the matter is, everyone is not the same. Some people are superior to others, and it's just a fact of life that the inferior people never seem to stop whining about.
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,Of course, this being a bunch that's half comprised of a bunch of godless atheists, they had to say "Creator", but we know what they mean. They're saying that everyone should have a bunch of special rights, just for being born.
that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.Well, laaa dee da. These people wouldn't know what to do with "Liberty" if they had it. And people are entitled to "the pursuit of Happiness"? Is there some new, stronger stuff that they're smoking in Berkeley these days? Because the reality is, life can suck sometimes and you're going to just have to deal with it. You may even be — gasp! — unhappy sometimes. And there's no government entitlement that will save you from it.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.This is the same logic that says that the FBI ought to ask terrorists for permission before they storm their hideouts. If you're an unlawful combatant, it doesn't matter that you didn't give "permission" to your government: They're gonna come kick your ass.
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,More socialist tripe. Wankers of the world, unite! This says, basically, "if we don't like the government, we're just gonna make a new one!" Why not just accept that your views are a distinct minority, and that they're unpopular, and that it might be worth your while to figure out why, exactly, no one agrees with you. Hint: It's not because you're a far more advanced human being than they are.
and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.That's right, wish it all away. If the Government isn't doing its part to make sure that you're all comfy and happy, you ought to just ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist at all. And we wonder why kids today don't have any respect for our institutions?
Seems to me that instead of trotting out all these Manifestos and Declarations, this bunch of impossible-to-please malcontents might want to ask themselves why they're having such trouble accepting a system that seems to be working just fine for everyone else. The job of any true patriot is to support our country, especially in such tumultuous times. Maybe if they spent less time deciding that everything is the fault of the government, and more time realizing that they are the problem and the reason that they're unhappy, they'd be able to start "pursuing the happiness" that they feel they're so entitled to.
Previously: VPR Matrix laptop
Insignifica
http://www.insignifica.org/archives/2003_01.shtml#000829: Anil's on to something here...nod in agreement at his sly, tongue in cheek humor than laugh in disbelief at the read more »Al-Muhajabah's Islamic Blogs
ROFL: If warbloggers fisked the Declaration of Independence read more »Paul Willoughby
“…malcontents might want to ask themselves why they’re having such trouble accepting a system that seems to be working just fine for everyone else.” Does that “everyone else” include the 40 million odd Americans who live below the poverty line? (UNDP development report 2002 - available at http://www.undp.org/currentHDR_E/)
goneaway
Poverty line? We’re obviously more involved in the fight against adult functional illiteracy. Sarcasm tags are probably a little outdated so you might want to check out this “context” thing all the learned types are agog over. There’s also this “reading comprehension” stuff I’ve been hearing so much about but I haven’t had time to scour the USA Today archives for information about it. It may be a good subject for your next careful examination.
deus62
On a bad day, you gave me a good laugh. I haven’t stopped yet. I think I’ll print this out and put it on my pillow …
: )
Cheers!
Tomas
Here’s a long shot: they could vote.. If they want to really make a difference they could inspire others to do the same. But then again, just writing up a worthless “manifesto” is easier.
In a country where less than 35% take part in electing their officials, it’s a pretty stupid thing to blame the government, blame your God damn selves instead if you have a problem with it.
Maciej Ceglowski
The pattern here will be, odd-numbered posts don’t get it, and even-numbered posts get it.
I got it!
Thanks Anil, for brightening a cold morning.
Eric Vitiello
Hey Paul - how about this… I bet we could reduce that number by half if more of those “people living in poverty” would do something to help themselves, rather than living off of the system. They could get help from someone who is literate (if they aren’t). They could read a book or twelve if they don’t know enough to get a decent job. The could go back to school. They could, at the very least, get off their asses.
Granted, a portion of those 40 million are disabled in some shape or fashion that really does make it impossible for them to get a job. But I guarantee to you that there is also a percentage of that 40 million that are disabled enough that they can’t get the job they want, but they could get some other job… but they don’t because it’s not exactly what they would want to do.
Who pays for them? we do.
I’d like to see a report that totals the amount of people that are in poverty, and really have ABSOLUTELY no way to get out.
Joe Grossberg
Maciej: Looks like it was a mistake for Anil to omit the <tongueincheek> tags. I just hope a news service doesn’t pick this up, like they did with the Onion’s “Congress demands new buildings” and LGFs “Arabs decry Israeli astronaut” parodies.
Anil, bravo! I take a lot of inspiration from the fact that, among the colonies, an estimated 1/3 supported the rebels, 1/3 supported the King and 1/3 weren’t closely aligned with either side. Great ideas always have critics.
SteveB
Paul and Tomas and Eric: isn’t there a metafilter thread calling your name?
I got it, but I don’t think I’m even-numbered. Very nice, Anil.
George
Anil’s a patriot. Pass it on!
Anonymous
Ok, so I’m coming back in on an odd-numbered post, but at least I get it now. I’ve never commented on a blog without checking out the posted links. Why I did today, to my embarassment, is a complete mystery. I hope my mistake made all even-numbered posters feel very clever :)
FFejL
Brilliant!
Oliver
If you think that’s bad, look at their later pieces of hack work. I would stomp them with my boot, but it’s away at the cleaners.
Tomas
SteveB: Maybe we need those sarcasm tags after all..
Ryan
Thanks, Anil, for pointing out what a ridiculous screed those hacks slapped together. The only thing I fear is that by pointing out the faults of these lefty ‘idealists,’ more people will be exposed to their drivel. Now that you’re a big time media star, I’d hate to see one of the larger outlets get ahold of this and give voice to this so-called resistance.
Also, thanks to Oliver for the link to their other works. It appears their stupidity knows no bounds — a right to “free speech” and against “search and seizure”? How do they suggest we keep terrorists at bay, if they’re able to voice dissent and we can’t search their homes?
I can’t believe how low groups like these have stooped. To think that any government, let alone one as powerful as our own could be bothered with such claptrap is entirely laughable. Thank god Anil provides a voice of reason in this mad, mad, mad world. Kudos.
Michael Doss
Brilliant. I’m not sure how anyone reading past the third paragraph could mistake this for anything other than political humor, but I think it goes to show how scary the rhetoric from conservative, “patriotic” groups and the US government has become as of late. Keep on writin’, Anil…it’s good stuff.
Vidiot
they were anti-Americans?
We didn’t learn THAT on our school trip to DC in fourth grade…
GK
Nearly as good a satire as Swift’s “A Modest Proposal.” Thanks for making my day.
Hurray!
Ten dollar words make you neither Intelligent nor Superior.
case in point
“The job of any true patriot is to support our country, especially in such tumultuous times.”
Hey smarty, The goveronment and the country are not the same. I love my country, I do not love my goveronment.
“Of course, this being a bunch that’s half comprised of a bunch of godless atheists, they had to say “Creator”, but we know what they mean. “
Godless Athiest. Hmm.. real smart that comment. As if there is a ‘God-fearing Athiest’?
If you’re such a patriot, get off your computer, go to the recruiter and join the army/marines/navy/air force and ask for combat duty in Iraq.
I did a 3 year tour in the Army in a combat arms job.
I’m not strutting around saying some people ‘are superior over others’ do you even know what you mean by that? intellectually superior? sure. But to be treated better because they are ‘superior’ is foolish. I am no racist so do not take the next comment as such. But 30 or 40 years ago, you would have been considered inferior and called a ‘Sand Nigger’ fairly openly in this country. So following the ‘all men are created equal’ doctrine has allowed you to work in relativley any field you like.
And, I will not leave an email address.. just because, part of the fun of the internet is anonymity.
and don’t correct any spelling/grammer mistakes I made.. It’s not gonna make feel bad
Anonymous
(“The pattern here will be, odd-numbered posts don’t get it, and even-numbered posts get it…” by: Maciej Ceglowski on January 23, 2003 10:29 AM)
Now if that isn’t adding a completely new element to the whole discussion, I don’t know what is.
Did it say anything in the Constitution about counting? Me thinks not, otherwise the ability would have been more readily available to some.
;)
Cheers!
Linkmeister
I haven’t bothered to count whether I’m on the even-numbered or odd-numbered side, but since the very first quote and its provenance was entirely obvious to me, it worries me that so many folk didn’t recognize it at all.
Oy!
Richard Bennett
Nice try, Anil, but it’s not an appropriate analogy. The Founding Fathers were so sincere in their convictions that they risked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor fighting a WAR against Britain to secure liberty and justice for all, and most of them paid a heavy price for it; Jeff Jacoby wrote a column in the Boston Globe on that subject, as was suspended four months without pay just for mentioning it.
The kind of people that Warbloggers Fisk these days wouldn’t fight a war to save their granny from a rapist.
So there’s a big difference.
Still, I think it was clever.
Andy
Well Richard manages to miss the point entirely, but that’s no suprise. It’s not that there is any meaningful equivalence between the Founding White Patriarchs and the Fisks, Moores, or whohaveyous but that “Fisking” is tired, juvenile, and silly.
Richard Bennett
People been Fisking since Usenet, Andy, where we used to call it the surgical flame. It’s just as useful today as it ever was, given the right subject.
I understood, of course, that Anil was making fun of Warbloggers, but why is that the Earnest Ones didn’t get that?
Ed P
That’s it Anil, fact check there asses!
Prasanth
good one keep them coming
Andy
Well Richard, I agree that Fisking certainly goes well in terms of its format in places like the Usenet and online discussion fora. I still maintain that any utility derived from the technique is overwhelemd by the widespread and willful overuse of reductionistic decontextualization.
Richard Bennett
That’s why we have horse races, Andy.
Jessica
Brilliant. Extra bonus points for the Even Numbered Comments maneuve; that’s art.
Ed
Hey, wait a minute! We need more hatred!
wKen
I’m not sure whether to say how funny it is that so many people didn’t recognize the source of the “manifesto” or laugh at RB’s ridiculous assertion that the “kind of people that Warbloggers Fisk these days wouldn’t fight a war to save their granny from a rapist.”
I guess I managed both.
Andy
Richard - Hmm, horses, personally I think they’re best used for glue and dog food but perhaps that’s just my equine class prejudice shining through. I still think a voluntary Fisking moratorium, i.e. no need for the UN, yet ;), would be a good thing and promote better writing.
Eric Rolph
Oh, this is sweet assed sarcasm. I love it.
Evo Terra
Actually, I hope the mainstream media does pick this up. Wouldn’t it be classic to see some ditzy AM show tearing this to pieces? What a hoot! Nice job, Flower.
Laura
LOL - RB makes a ridiculous assertion? Say it ain’t so!
adam
I love it. Read A People’s History of the US, if you haven’t already. Funny how those who are so proud of our country will look to these documents and not see the glaring contradictions between speech and act.
Norm Jenson
I find the comments oddly uneven. Thanks
Stan
This just may be the best thing you ever done Anil.
jeffery23m
I really pictured rush limbauh—he would have for sure been a torry!
Lane
[chortle] Thanks, Anil. That cracked me up.
Although I lean towards the Right, and therefore the Forces of Evil, whenever I see someone use the term “Fisking” I know I can skip what comes next, as it will be an awfully self-indulgent and lazy style of vitriolic refutational argument.
Dean Allen
Faster, Dashy! Kill! Kill!
Glenn will DEFINATELY link this…
Blogrolling you!
MINNEAPOLIS DELENDA EST
Charles
I was gonna comment, but I just thought of something for my Everquest character, yo.
Tom Coates
Brilliant. Stunning. Well done!
Geodog
Why does everybody always pick on Berkeley?
pef
Spot on calling these rabble-rousers to the carpet, Anil. There’s this other one, the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights that’s been bugging me for YEARS; you should have a hack at that one, too, give ‘em the business. If you read that thing you’ll have a heart attack, all these rights about safety and education but nothing for people who make it all happen. What about MY diamond mines? MY slaves? What about MY sacred right to give a clitoridectomy to anyone I choose? What’s the purpose of money if you can’t keep women and children in slavery? No, you read this “United Nations” document, it pretends to be for everyone, but it’s all about poor people, who, let’s face it, are lazy, unkempt, noisy, useless, stupid, ignorant, did I mention lazy, hateful, POOR, and often brown.
Thank God for our president who keeps use safe from that invader-of-America Saddam Hussein!
andres
Hmmm. Either I read too fast or no one seems to have pointed out that the comments written by Anil alongside the manifesto were actually quite common among Americans in the 18th century. The textbooks remembered them as Tories. Too bad that “Toryism” is a mental outlook rather than an inherited characteristics. Hope I haven’t offened any British conservatives by pointing this out.
Seyed Razavi
Maw. I wish nobody had said anything and more earnest commenters came to decry the post.
At least Richard Bennett’s always on cue to give me more of a laugh.
Great stuff, Anil. I always thought it’d be good to have a few more paradoy blogs including one set in the times of American Independence like you have that Julius Caeser blogging (http://www.sankey.ca/caesar/). Or a group blog with all the founding fathers posting.
A blog in the voice of Thomas Paine would also be cool.
Anyways….
Digant C Kasundra
MANIFESTOS are always the answer? Why? Because you capture all your ideas into one about why the world would be better if everyone listened to you and then when the world continues on its miserable path, you can just say “Its b/c no one heeds my manifesto!”
Viola! You don’t have to do anything except write you dissenting opinion and blame everyone else. :) I love it!
Post a comment